At what point does an 18-hole course get "too short" and "too easy"?

[Tom_Doak]

Back to the opening post:

A course is "too short" and "too easy" when you make too many birdies.

I don't know who has ever made too many birdies.

[John Kavanaugh]

The two putt is an important element to any strategic design.  When every approach is wide open from under 100 yards a two putt becomes a failure.  It is not only not fun it is an unreasonable expectation.

One way to look at it is to consider what happens to your swing after playing in a series of scrambles. You lose your connection to the essence of the game.

[Jason Thurman]

It seems pretty arrogant to suggest that someone else could be incorrect when he states that he's bored.

It's also ironic that we so often claim that par is "just a number" and ultimately meaningless, but then a thread like this comes along and all of a sudden par becomes the defining factor in determining whether or not a course is easy. In my mind, easy has nothing to do with par and everything to do with whether there are stakes that come into play when executing the shots on a hole.

[Tom_Doak]

It seems pretty arrogant to suggest that someone else could be incorrect when he states that he's bored.

Jason:

"Too short" and "too easy" were your criticisms ... they imply that you are so good that some architecture holds no challenge for you.  

That, of course, is your prerogative, but every golfer will have their own threshold for it, so an overall pronouncement of "too easy" is silly.  "Too short" is even less defensible, really, because it seems in many cases that some holes get more interesting when they are shorter, yet you know it's foolhardy to attack them.

"Bored", on the other hand, is an important criticism of a course.  That implies not only that you can score well but that it's not interesting to do so.  That is way stronger than "too easy".

NOTE:  I do remember that when the PGA Tour players were having open season criticizing the TPC at Sawgrass in 1982 and 1983, Pete Dye told a reporter that "as long as no one calls it too dull or too easy, I am fine with all the rest of it." 

[Sean_A]

I agree, I think most handicap folks that think a course is too easy or too short (for them) probably mean it is boring or not varied enough.  If not, a lot of these handicap guys must be arrogant.  That said, dropping budget considerations, its hard to understand why a 6000 yard course can't be designed well enough to provide the long ball thrill some speak of if its only a matter of three or four approaches.  If we include par 3s as a type of approach, it really shouldn't be that difficult to provide five or six long ball approaches....if we accept that the course will more likely than not be better off as sub 70 par. 

I am the opposite.  If I see a 6700 yard par 72 course, I immediately scan the card for the odd yardage holes to see if the course is about more than banging the ball about.  I have played enough 5700-6300 yard courses to know these can provide plenty of interest, challenge, variety and fun for just about any golfer with an open mind. 

Ciao

[Duncan Cheslett]

Ours too is a 6000 yard par 69 course, and one of the problems we have in attracting members is that it is too bloody difficult!

A 6000 yard course does not necessarily play short; as in our case it can simply mean that there is an abundance of par 3 holes (five) and only two par 5s. We have several par 4s over 440 yards.

We have more single handicap players than any other club in our area. Our scratch team this year won both the local league and knock-out cup.

A 'short' course most certainly doesn't have to be too short or too easy for good players.

[Thomas Dai]

Thomas,
That Ping was hardly a knife-(compared to blades) but it certainly repopularized the one iron for few years. had a guy come in for rentals the other day-18 handicap. Insisted on a one iron-said he didn't hit woods. I gave him my old Ping with a slick rubber grip. He hit every fairway according to the caddie.

Jeff, I couldn't locate my Mizuno blade 1-iron to photo, it's hiding in the back of the loft I think, so I just copied a photo off the web of the model many folks seemed to use. Incidentally, I took my Ping Eye version out the other day, low flight and the ball just rolled forever on landing. Great for the ground and/or wind game, although regrettably not as much ground game around as there used to be. Have to find the Mizzy and take it out for knock. Memories.

6,000 yds, par-69, few if any par-5's, longish/difficult par-3's and a few over 400 yd par-4's? Sounds a bit like the recent debate about the Green/Red courses at Frilford Heath. Many other alleged 'easy shorties' around too (fortunately). Modern PR, marketing hype etc does nothing for them but there's another side to the coin, coz it keeps many fine allegedly 'easy shorties' less busy for folk like us to play on and enjoy!

atb

[Jim Nugent]

Ours too is a 6000 yard par 69 course, and one of the problems we have in attracting members is that it is too bloody difficult!
We have more single handicap players than any other club in our area. Our scratch team this year won both the local league and knock-out cup.

That might be good way to attract more members: join and the course will make your game better. 

[Jason Thurman]

"Too short" and "too easy" were your criticisms ... they imply that you are so good that some architecture holds no challenge for you.  

I fundamentally disagree with this. Calling a course too short or too easy is a criticism of the course. The perception will, of course, inevitably be influenced by characteristics of the accuser's game. Nevertheless, he's criticizing the course and its architecture. This is different than if a player says "I'm too skilled for that course," in which case he's making a statement about his own playing ability. The distinction is subtle, but important, and here's why:

When a course offers a barrage of flat, short, wide holes with no penalty for hitting a ball poorly or offline, a player's failures are merely his own. A mediocre-to-poor player will still find a way to shoot over par, and possibly even fail to break 80/90/100. But he'll be doing so because he's chunking and shanking and pushing and pulling the ball, and not because he has gamely attempted to conquer shots just beyond his ability. On the other hand, his successes are given an asterisk by the course's lack of teeth.

There's no feeling in golf less satisfying than playing a round at Juniper Hills Municipal Course in my hometown of Frankfort, KY. If you shoot 5 strokes over your index, you feel like you're no longer qualified to play golf. If you beat your index by 5 strokes, you walk away feeling like you did when you were a kid and your dad let you score a point in a one-on-one basketball game out of pity. No matter what you shoot on that toothless, 6000 yard course, you walk away unsatisfied and hoping that no one asks. Whether you broke par or not has nothing to do with it. The course is just too easy for most serious golfers to consider it good architecture. That doesn't mean that no one should play it and that it can't be fun, as it can be just as enjoyable as any other poorly-designed golf course. But given the option of playing at Juniper Hills or playing anywhere else, I'll almost always choose "anywhere else."

That's obviously an extreme example, and I'm sure there are plenty of really enjoyable courses that also happen to be shorter and easier to score on. I've played quite a few of them myself. But <6000 yard courses with great architecture are tougher to find because, on balance, they simply don't have as much space to offer variety and are often missing the features that make for interesting, challenging shots. Not every <6000 yard course is too short or too easy, but certainly some of them are and it's a fair criticism to assign to a course with little architectural challenge.

[Tom_Doak]

<6000 yard courses with great architecture are tougher to find because, on balance, they simply don't have as much space to offer variety and are often missing the features that make for interesting, challenging shots. Not every <6000 yard course is too short or too easy, but certainly some of them are and it's a fair criticism to assign to a course with little architectural challenge.

Jason:

I don't think we're that far apart.  Everything you said above indicates that your real beef with these courses are that they are too boring, and there is nobody here who champions boring, dumbed-down golf.  But when you call it "too short" or "too easy", many golfers take offense [as I have], because it sounds like you are putting yourself above us in your criticism, if we don't find it too easy ourselves.  If you'd stick with "boring" you'd get no argument. 

Also, many good golfers who use those terms believe that EVERY COURSE has to be 6800 yards or 7200 yards to be worth their time.  You've indicated that is not the case for you, thank goodness, but we still react to the phrase "too short" because it has been used to dismiss some very very good courses.

[Brent Hutto]

It not something that enters explicitly into my reckoning of a round but the hacked-up shots Jason describes as "...chunking and shanking and pushing and pulling the ball..." are not part of what I'm recalling when someone asks if a certain course is fun or not. Or if it's a good course.

Thinking back on a round I've played, there are sort of three categories I'll recall about a certain hole. It could be interesting in some way (and given my weak game most golf holes have *some* form of interest or challenge about them). Or it could be a hole I didn't care for, either boring/uninteresting or maybe just over-the-top difficult or too quirky for its own good. But some holes my conclusion is "can't say" because I hit my tee shot OB then cold-topped a couple from the fairway on my second ball and picked up before reaching the green.

Anyway, I think that's what Jason was talking about. Probably the "best course" among all those I've played is Royal St. George's. Being a links course with frequently breezy conditions, a few blind tee shots and lots of waist-high fescue grass there are obviously going to be some "can't say" holes in a given round for a 17-handicapper. But like another favorite of mine, the Ocean Course at Kiawah, on the holes where I do manage to hit normal shots I can shoot some really solid scores (meaning better than my handicap) or some really high scores (again, relative to my handicap) and there's a very fine line between the shots I'm hitting when scoring well or scoring poorly.

To me that's the essence of a good (or in the case of those two examples, great) golf course. Ignore the duffed shots, that's just a cross we hackers have to bear. But a good course will repeatedly, hole after hole, shot after shot, sort out smart vs. stupid or well-struck vs. slightly mishit or even better it will have some holes that play into a relative strength of my game and others that test the things I'm relatively weak at. All subject to plenty of random outcomes, naturally.

A course is too short when none of the holes, or practically none, are long enough to fully engage any sort of knowledge of the relative strengths and flaws in ones game. And it's too easy when virtually everywhere on the course a slightly offline or slightly mis-struck shot is sure to end up just slightly farther from the hole than a perfect shot. Golf is the most fun when there's some threshold involved in a shot. Great courses tend to offer many shots where a perfect shot will save you most or all of a stroke relative to a mediocre one. Too easy courses don't seem to have those thresholds.

[Rich Goodale]

That's very nicely written Ben. I particularly like your final two sentences - "If the player has to choose both a shot type and appropriate club on each tee shot the notion of difficulty and interest seem to return. Thus why short holes like the 10th at Riviera are so compelling."

There's perhaps an equipment issue here too.

Before the 460cc titanium driver became commonplace, even when drivers were still metal/titanium (rather than persimmon/laminate) but their sizes were considerably smaller, they still weren't that easy to hit, the more so with a 'swervy' old balata ball.

18-holes then seemed to be more than just 14 wacks with a driver plus 4 x par-3's. Indeed, I recall a considerable number of both very good and lesser players hitting fairway woods and long irons off tees on par-4's and even par-5's. I also recall the use of that most wonderful weapon....'the knife', ie the 1-iron, it's use even from the tee by higher single figure hcppers was once pretty commonplace, certainly on UK links courses. Now alas not the case - a vision of Victor Meldrew is appearing before my eyes as I type this!

atb

Anyone still carry one or have one in their storeroom?

Thomas

You didn't find that club on Sawgrass CC in the late 1980's, did you?  If so, it is mine!

As to the general tenor of this thread, my local club is >5500 yards and I've seen solid mid-single figure handicap players (and better) shoot in the 80's (including me and more than one other GCA stalwart).

Rich

[Thomas Dai]

Thomas
You didn't find that club on Sawgrass CC in the late 1980's, did you?  If so, it is mine!
Rich

Nice try Rich but afraid not! Great club through.

At this point in the discussion I'd like to reference this link - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/best-of-golf/best-of-golf-a-dream-course-ii/ - it's to Sean's most interesting Dream Course II in the Best of Golf area of the site - 18 pretty tasty holes, 5,781 yds, par 68. Some - not me! - might perhaps say "too short", but "too easy", no way. I reckon you'd need to be a damn good player to shoot low scores on this track.

atb

[Peter Pallotta]

It's interesting what expectations golfers bring to the course, a set of mostly unconscious (for me at least) calculations and assumptions about what level of challenge and interest (and often, but not always, those go hand in hand) they are about to face, and about what they are likely to do/achieve/score in response to that challenge. Sometimes it is pleasant to have those calculations/assumptions turned upside down -- I'm thinking of a particular 6100 yard course that always plays harder than I expect (still, even after several plays), but plays harder in an interesting and engaging way. Sometimes, on other courses, and for reasons I can't/won't try to explore now, having those assumptions up-ended feels like a pain in the ass. I feels sorry for the latter type of courses because, perhaps unfairly and perhaps through no fault of the design itself, I tend not to want to go back and play them again. I'm just guessing, of course, but maybe other golfers are like me too, and the reason that some courses don't get a lot of play is because the unconscious expectations of golfers are not being met, or are being up-ended in a less than satisfying way.

Peter  

[Jason Topp]

As Ally's post suggests - a course becomes too short when shots get repetitive and it does not matter where you hit your tee shot on a par 4.  It gets too easy when hazards are places in such a fashion that they do not force decision making.  I could still shoot 90 on such a course.  To me a 4500 yard course could be plenty long and difficult if well designed and a 6500 yard course could be too short and too easy if poorly designed. 

From the perspective of a course trying to market itself in the US, I think it is pretty difficult to thrive on a course less than 6800 yards or so.  Good players avoid joining such clubs.  Other players follow the lead of the good ones.  I heard many good players indicate they did not want to join my former club because it was not big enough.  It is a 6600 yard par 70 course that is difficult enough that even par has qualified for USGA events and one under has qualified for the US Amateur. 



 

[John Kavanaugh]

I can not accept the idea that everyone shooting the same score in the same amount of time is something that is good for the game.  We are telling people to move up.  We wants eternal width with no trees.  We want flat greens of perfect condition without too much or too little speed.  We want the equipment bifurcated so even the best in the world don't hit the ball further than your average 50 year old 14 handicap.  This argument has nothing to do with length as much as it has to do with no one feeling bad about themselves.

This game was built by and around people who are genetically predisposed to feel bad about themselves.  I don't believe that it can survive without misery.

I am a member of a course that is exactly what all you seem to want.  It is a Twilight Zone episode of golfing hell.  I played in one stag this year that had a $17 entry fee and my team won.  We shot eight under in a nine hole scramble.  Our prize was $16.  You can't win for losing.

[Matthew Petersen]

If you're at the point where there's never really any reason for you to hit much over a wedge for an approach, that gets boring. Even if you're only a 7 HCP. Maybe he's a 7 simply because he's a terrible putter.

Handicap doesn't always tell the whole story about a golfer. I play to around a 2, but I actually find it much easier to play to my handicap on a longer, harder course than a shorter, easier one. This is because the strengths of my game are driving and chipping. The weaknesses are irons and putting. So really no matter how short or easy a course is, it's rare that I'm going to make a lot of birdies or go low--I don't hit the ball close enough to the hole or make enough putts. So on a 6,200 yard course with a 68.0 rating, I can very easily play well and shoot 73. Meanwhile I can play a much longer, harder course, still make a lot of parse and shoot 73, but that round looks a lot better if the course carries a rating of 72 or 73.

Sure, the straw man golfer I have proposed could work hard on his short game and bring his handicap down. But he can do that too while paling more at a longer course where he gets to challenge more parts of his game.

[Mike Hendren]

I feel for those who have too much game (whether real or delusional) for a well designed 6,000 yards golf course.  I also find it impressive that many posters have apparently mastered full and dialed-in wedgery.  Most "short" courses are replete with half-par holes that separate better and lesser players.  Few of us have a legitimate chance of shooting par - much less going low.  It is thrilling to have a fighting chance when you stick the first tee in the ground. 

Bogey

[Tommy Williamsen]

I feel for those who have too much game (whether real or delusional) for a well designed 6,000 yards golf course.  I also find it impressive that many posters have apparently mastered full and dialed-in wedgery.  Most "short" courses are replete with half-par holes that separate better and lesser players.  Few of us have a legitimate chance of shooting par - much less going low.  It is thrilling to have a fighting chance when you stick the first tee in the ground. 

Bogey

I don't think any of us have trouble with a well designed 6000 yard course.  I referenced Rye and Cavendish as two that are pretty spectacular.  I can think of others.  The problem is that many shorter courses are driver and short iron.  Regardless of score it becomes tiring to hit short irons on most holes.  There are scores of 6000 yard courses that just are plain uninteresting and uninspiring.  The same can be true, however, of 7000 yard courses.  They can be long and uninspiring.  At least with a longer course there are more options of which tee you can play on each hole.  I do like to mix up tees on different days.  It tends to keep my interest better.

[Mike Hendren]

My beloved RHCC in rural West Tennessee can be stretched to 3100 yards from the tips but typically plays around 3025.  Change par to 70 and this is what you get:

1  475 yards par four
2  185 yards par three
3  310 yards par four
4  145 yards par three
5  495 yards par five
6  350 yards par four
7  300 yards par four
8  425  yards par four
9  350 yards par four

Perhaps your problem is the same one lamented here thousands of times:  You simply drive the ball too far

[Tommy Williamsen]

My beloved RHCC in rural West Tennessee can be stretched to 3100 yards from the tips but typically plays around 3025.  Change par to 70 and this is what you get:

1  475 yards par four
2  185 yards par three
3  310 yards par four
4  145 yards par three
5  495 yards par five
6  350 yards par four
7  300 yards par four
8  425  yards par four
9  350 yards par four

Perhaps your problem is the same one lamented here thousands of times:  You simply drive the ball too far

Sounds like a nice mix of holes to me.

[Matthew Petersen]

I feel for those who have too much game (whether real or delusional) for a well designed 6,000 yards golf course.  I also find it impressive that many posters have apparently mastered full and dialed-in wedgery.  Most "short" courses are replete with half-par holes that separate better and lesser players.  Few of us have a legitimate chance of shooting par - much less going low.  It is thrilling to have a fighting chance when you stick the first tee in the ground. 

Bogey

I don't think any of us have trouble with a well designed 6000 yard course.  I referenced Rye and Cavendish as two that are pretty spectacular.  I can think of others.  The problem is that many shorter courses are driver and short iron.  Regardless of score it becomes tiring to hit short irons on most holes.  There are scores of 6000 yard courses that just are plain uninteresting and uninspiring.  The same can be true, however, of 7000 yard courses.  They can be long and uninspiring.  At least with a longer course there are more options of which tee you can play on each hole.  I do like to mix up tees on different days.  It tends to keep my interest better.

I agree. Even if you aren't a good wedge player (maybe especially so) it's just not fun to play driver-wedge all day.

This is where the quality of a course design shines through. A 6,000 yard course can offer lots of interesting shots, varied hole lengths, etc. But I have seen plenty where you just have a lot of 340 yd par 4s. That's pretty numbing.

[John Kavanaugh]

I feel for those who have too much game (whether real or delusional) for a well designed 6,000 yards golf course.  I also find it impressive that many posters have apparently mastered full and dialed-in wedgery.  Most "short" courses are replete with half-par holes that separate better and lesser players.  Few of us have a legitimate chance of shooting par - much less going low.  It is thrilling to have a fighting chance when you stick the first tee in the ground. 

Bogey

What a load of patronizing crap from our newest fake namer. We are not professing to having too much game, we simply want the same thrill as you. The thrill of breaking 80 on a good day.  This will always be more relaxing than being asked to break 70.  When you start to make courses so easy that any one swing can ruin a day then you have sucked the fun right out the window.

A few years back it was commonly said that bad golfers have more fun. I guess that got old because now everyone wants courses so easy that the bad golfer is a thing of the past.

[Mike Hendren]

John, if I had your length I'd agree that short hitters are bad golfers.  I would think a competitive player like yourself would embrace limbo architecture - how low can you go.  Short = easy?  I dunno.

As for the "fake" name if we limited our discussion to golf course architecture and eschewed perjorative language, those of us who work for publicly traded companies wouldn't have anything to worry about.  Then again, we'd miss you.

Bogey

[John Kavanaugh]

I'm not talking about length, I am talking about easy. The course I grew up on has gotten ahead of the curve and now is a par 72 rated like at 66. As a 2.0 index I have to break 70 to have a nice day. Victoria National is rated more like 74 so I can break 80 and have a great day. Who wouldn't rather have the pressure of only breaking 80 compared to breaking 70?

I sincerely doubt that just because an individual works for a public company he is more accountable for his actions than a someone who is self employed.